When I started this blog back in 2009, I wanted to vent about media relations. At the time, PR people were taking a lot of heat for spamming bloggers. It seemed like every day there was some story about a PR person that had pissed off a blogger. Most of the attacks were probably justified, though the result of years of built up tension in most cases. As I started blogging, I didn’t think it would stick. When I launched my personal blog in 2007, I wrote two posts, then deleted them. I’d write them again, then I deleted them. I ultimately decided blogging wasn’t for me. I eventually came around.

With Journalistics, it was different. In 2009, social media was starting to take off. I had 12 years of PR experience under my belt – and I knew a thing or two about SEO. I never thought of myself as an expert, but as I started to share my suggestions, a lot of great feedback started coming in. I was actually helping people. Some people said my blog had become their favorite (but that’s what mom’s are supposed to say, right?).

If you had told me that hundreds of thousands of people would read my posts, I wouldn’t have believed you. But that’s what happened. Then the posts started being mentioned by people I respected in the industry. And then I’d have people come up to me at conferences and say, “I read your blog. I love it.” I always thought they had me confused for a similar-sounding blog. [Read more…]

Why do so many bloggers write rankings or list posts? Everywhere you look you see top 10 this or 15 ways to do that, the best new this or top tips for that. Why are rankings and list posts such a popular format? For starters, readers gobble this type of post up.

Let’s be honest, most of us have short attention spans (half of you probably won’t make it beyond this sentence). We like to scan lists of stuff. We like rankings even better – we’re all competitive in one way or another. We rank everything, from football and songs, to restaurants and best products of the year.

If you want to write a blog post that will outperform your other blog posts, write rankings or list post. Don’t do it all the time (you’ll just annoy people), but rather use this type of post to mix things up once in a while. The hypothesis certainly holds true on Journalistics. Of the top 10 posts on Journalistics this year, five were ranking posts (and one was a list). [Read more…]

More than 12,000 times every month How to Write a Press Releaseis searched on Google, delivering more than 49 million search results. Is that the right question to ask? What about “are press releases effective?” That will yield more than 484 million results for you.

This isn’t one of those “the press release is dead” posts, because I personally don’t think they will die anytime soon. It’s just one tool of many we have to choose from today for communicating with audiences. [Read more…]

I realize many of you reading this post are already up to speed with blogging. You may have a personal and company blog that you work on, and already know much of what I’m about to tell you. If you fall into this category, you may want to skip over this post. If on the other hand, you represent of the millions of organizations that have yet to write a single blog post, this post is for you.

First, a primer. Blogs are essentially online journals. While some companies choose to integrate blogs directly into their websites, other companies link to blogs they author on do it yourself free sites such as WordPress or Blogger. Either method works fine as long as the end result looks professional from a content and design perspective. If you already have access to Web design and development help, you may want to opt for a more advanced solution, such as installing WordPress on a server, which gives you much more flexibility in terms of the presentation and functionality of your blog.

If you’re on the Journalistics Blog right now, you’ll notice a nifty little widget over on the right column that says “Skribit Suggestions.” Skribit is an application (or widget) bloggers can install on their blog that enables their readers to suggest topics for them to write about. It’s a great tool for engaging your audience and learning more about your readers’ interests.

It’s also a great tool – as their tagline states – to help cure writer’s block. If you’ve ever struggled with trying to decide what you’ll blog about next, Skribit is for you. For example, Skribit suggests “Why are you using Skribit?” as the first suggestion by default when you signup for the service – which is what made me decide to write this post.

Where Did Skribit Come From?

In case you’re wondering, Skrbit launched in November 2007 at Atlanta Startup Weekend. The company’s founders – a bunch of smart Atlanta entrepreneurs – have recently started to dedicate a lot more time to building out the product, and you can expect to see even more features and functionality soon. If you blog on a regular basis, we’re sure you’ll love Skribit as much as we do.

Skribit is free and easy to install on most blogs (check out the Skribit FAQs to see if your blogging platform is supported – most of the major platforms like TypePad, WordPress and Blogger are). If you’re interested, visit the Skribit website today to learn more.

While you’re here, why not suggest a topic for us to blog about? Just type your suggestion in the Skrbit widget to the right and let others vote on your suggestion. Who knows, your suggestion just might be the topic of our next post.